Girl Act by Kristina Shook Page B

up to that man, “I work for the Animal Protection League! Sir, you have two minutes to stop hitting that puppy, or I’ll take it away.”
    Then I strode off and over to the handful of dog owners watching their dogs play and asked, “What the hell’s going on?”
    “Don’t know. That guy keeps hitting it,” someone said.
    “He shouldn’t be allowed,” someone else said.
    “He’s got five minutes to get himself under control, before I yank that dog a way,” I warned the group. When a teenager entered the dog park with his Greyhound, the man motioned to him, said something and pointed to me.
    “That man down there said you can have the puppy, he doesn’t want it,” the kid raced up and told me. So I marched right down to the man.
    “The Animal Protection League thanks you for giving up this puppy,” I said, as any actor would. And the man nodded in relief and quickly left the park. Act ‘as if’, that’s my motto. That’s why Shadow is my dog.
    On my third visit to the Laurel Canyon Dog Park, with Shadow, I met a black haired, dark-eyed girl sitting on a bench next to a chubby English Bulldog who said, “I’m on my 3rd boyfriend thanks to this dog park.” Wow, I was excited. I figured maybe I could have a dog and a cool BF.
    “You’ve really met nice guys here?” I asked.
    “Yeah, if you have a dog and the guy has one, it’s a connection right away,” she informed me, like a total valley girl. Still, I believed her. Why not?
    Well, I didn’t exactly meet a boyfriend. Instead, I met a one-night stand. Correction, a two-night stand. Instead of becoming his girlfriend, I became his spinning top. Wowie! He had a purebred Shepherd that he had trained, and was, of course, a successful commercial actor. He had a very tight body, and an East Coast stride about him. Oh, and he looked as if he was Robert De Niro’s son or a younger twin. Shadow played with his overly polite Shepherd, so that helped. We talked about acting. What else? He wore a leather brand-name fanny pack, containing a roll of poop bags, treats, a dog whistle—and condoms. Very cleaver! I was ready to tell the whole female population at the Laurel Canyon Dog Park what I’d noticed, “Hey girls, this guy has condoms! He cares!”
    My college friends and I had met a bunch of guys who used to say things like, “I can’t feel anything or enough with the condom on,” or “That thing stops my squirting potential.” Well, maybe they didn’t say exactly that, but they did complain how a condom took away the ‘real’ experience for them. Answer: “Herpes and AIDS can take more than that away.”
    So the dog park actor invited me to have a home-cooked meal at his apartment. “A home-cooked vegetarian meal? Sure, I’m up for that,” I said. He gave me his address and explained how to find his house along Mulholland—which is one curvy drive. And yeah, there’s a cool movie that borrowed the title from it. Go figure.
    The day I went to his place, I left Shadow at home, knowing that four was a crowd. It’s like that sometimes with pets. He had the typical ‘Hollywood’ bungalow house, a brick fireplace, an open back yard, tiled floors and lots of windows. It was easy to find, and I parked next to his FJ Cruiser. When he swung the front door open, he was fresh out of the shower, his hair wet and clean, and he was still buttoning his denim shirt. “Irish Spring, smells yummy,” is what I almost sang out, when he gave a hug. Incidentally he hugged me in that way when a guy presses his whole torso into yours and if you don’t press yours into his, well, you could be called frigid.
    He had two Whole Foods shopping bags on the Spanish-tile countertop. He had the pasta going and had sautéed tofu like a guy who wants to get laid by a vegetarian. He played Billy Holiday singing The Very Thought of You , while he tossed the organic salad with homemade dressing. He had ‘husband’ potential skills that wouldn’t really be activated for